3 Gunmen Surrender

Hostages Unharmed 34-hour Drama Ends Peacefully

December 21, 1985|United Press International

NANTES, FRANCE — Three gunmen who took over a courtroom packed with people in a daring escape plot released their last two hostages unharmed on an airport runway Friday and gave up. No one was injured in the 34-hour drama.

The three gunmen freed the last of their hostages -- criminal court judge Dominique Bailhache, 45, and one of his assistants, Bernard Bureau -- before surrendering to police. The end to the hostage drama came on the runway of the Chateau-Bougon airport near Nantes, where the gunmen had hoped to fly to freedom in a government jet.

The gunmen included two Frenchmen who had been on trial Thursday for armed robbery and a Moroccan who burst into the Nantes courthouse, gave the Frenchmen guns and hand grenades and helped them take the hostages in a bold bid to free his friends.

Georges Courtois, the leader of the trio, smiled to reporters as he was led away to jail and said, ``We chose the best solution.``

The other two, Patrick Thiollet, 24, and Abdel Karim Khalki, 30, a Moroccan who claimed to be a Moslem extremist, remained silent.

Their decision to surrender came during four hours of intensive negotiations in a mini-van parked on the runway with a government Mystere 20 jet parked 400 yards away. During the talks, police refused a demand to let them take their two hostages with them.

France`s top anti-terrorist policeman, Robert Broussard, was a key official in negotiating the gunmens` final surrender and the decision earlier in the day to let them drive away with four captives from the Nantes courthouse, where they had stayed 27 hours.

``The three hostage-takers won the first round when they left the courthouse, but they lost the second,`` Broussard said. ``Our tactic was to find their weakness. The Moroccan was very generous in that respect. When the other two figured out it was either fight or die, they could go on no longer.``

He said ``it was impossible`` to use force to intervene in the crisis or else ``there would have been carnage.``

Six heavily armed SWAT team members had been stationed in a mini-van 20 yards away and all air traffic was canceled at the evacuated airport. Police sharpshooters took up positions atop the control tower.

A police negotiator, Loire regional prefect Jean Chevance, said the gunmen had told negotiators they might want to go to Switzerland or Morocco but had no precise destination.

With a Renault mini-van given them by police, the gunmen drove themselves and four hostages to the airport from the courthouse in Nantes, 200 miles southwest of Paris.

The gunmen departed the courthouse one by one, handcuffed to their last four hostages, as a police SWAT team and a crowd of reporters looked on. The gunmen fired several shots into the air as they left.

Several police vehicles trailed behind them, forming a convoy that wound through Nantes streets and eventually arrived at the airport, where they freed two hostages -- substitute judge Philippe Varin and Francois Dior, an assistant to the presiding judge.

The 34-hour drama began before noon Thursday when Courtois, Thiollet and two other people were being tried on armed robbery charges. Khalki, a Moroccan, burst into the courtroom, disarmed five police officers and fired a warning shot into the ceiling.

The overriding demand that emerged in the hours that followed was not one of political concerns, and police doubted there was a political motive to the hostage-taking. The gunmen seemed simply to want to go free.